A1-Ring - 26/08/2001   Qualifying Report   Mike Hezemans to go quickest in First Qualifying? No, it was his partner Jeroen Bleekemolen, taking his first, provisional, FIA GT pole. The top six in GT were Bleekemolen, the Prodrive Ferrari, the two Listers, the second Carsport Viper and the Larbre Viper - even though the latter had a trip into the gravel. N-GT was Riccitelli against Sugden again, the former a tenth quicker. The rest were close though, the Peter, Ortelli, Goeslard and von Gartzen Porsches also going through to the Superpole. The 360 Ferraris were nowhere again - 26th and 27th. Superpole was Superhot - but not a classic confrontation, perhaps for that reason. Jurgen von Gartzen was provsionally 12th and ended up ninth ("It’s a good feeling to drive your own car, for your own team. We’ve worked very hard to get ready, and the car is brand new. For me, it’s better to have your own team – if I want to make changes, I just have to say so!")... ...while Tim Sugden was initially seventh but finished in 11th - but it was very close. No one could touch Luca Riccitelli though, he was the only one in the 1:35s, four tenths quicker than Philipp Peter. Riccitelli: "This is a very good situation for us ; we’ve found a very good set-up. It’s very important for us to finish all four remaining races this season. My superpole lap was very clean ; I was not pushing too much." The GTs followed on right behind, and five of them were split by half a second - but as in N-GT, the quickest man was in a different bracket. Rickard Rydell set a superb 1:30.856 in the Prodrive Ferrari, and that was the team's first pole position with their 550. The 360s though, were still in trouble in the short session after Superpole, Terrien / Pescatori languishing down in the 1:37s, a second and more slower than Riccitelli had been. These two look as though they can be reasonably competitive, but they need to take points off the Italian, not follow him home. "It’s not really going better yet," commented Terrien. "I really don’t know what’s wrong. The engine is not right, and we can’t find what is wrong. It might be something to do with the circuit, with the changes of elevation, which is disadvantaging us more than usual. We haven’t been in a situation like this all season. In Monza we had engine problems, but we set the second best time overall in the second qualifying session – and Monza is a power circuit, where we were expecting to be at a disadvantage. I’m really surprised and confused. It’s a long race tomorrow and anything can happen, but it’s not starting out too well." Copyright ©2000-©2023 TotalMotorSport